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Fully Sourced Executive Summary of Pizzagate Evidence

About the Update

Moderator Rules, along with the new Submission Requirements, have been in effect for over a month now, and we have since managed to better understand the requirements and challenges involved in moderating the subverse according to these rules.

Unfortunately, the volume of rule-violating content that gets submitted to the subverse has repeatedly proven to exceed our moderating capacity, even with a generously sized moderator team that is often criticized for its headcount alone. As it became clear that the current Moderator Rules are not economically viable, we needed to find ways to make the moderator team more efficient while still preserving transparency to a reasonable extent. As a result, we're retiring the proactive explanatory moderator comment on deleted submissions in favor of on-demand explanations. Simultaneously, we're introducing a 2-week probation period for new moderators, during which explanatory comments on their deleted submissions will still be required, in order to provide new moderators a means to establish trust in the community.

Accordingly, new Moderator Rules are as follows, effective immediately.

Moderator Rules

(1) Submissions removed by a moderator will specify the following in the Reason field:

• one or more rule numbers referencing the Submission Requirements that have been violated;
• the username of the submitter (for later inspections).

(2) Submissions removed by a moderator on their probation period will, additionally, get a comment that will:

• explain clearly which rule the submission broke;
• explain what the poster needs to add/fix to resubmit or suggest an alternate subverse in the network to post it to;
• provide a hotlink to the suggested subverse;
• be distinguished as a moderator comment.

(3) Comments are to be off-limits to moderation, with the following exceptions:

• illegal content (CP, direct threats against IRL entities, anything that you could be criminally charged for in US court);
• doxxing;
• adspam;
• copypasta (the moderator will leave the first instance and remove the rest);
• NSFW content (images, etc.) that has not been appropriately labeled as such;
• hyperlinks to malicious URLs.

(4) Moderators are not required to vet submissions based on source quality, however, they can.

• This ensures that moderators have the means to fight planned disinformation.
• When cited sources don't plausibly back the claims, the submission can be considered unsourced.
• When on the fence, the moderator should err on the side of free speech, and let the community self-moderate with votes.

On-Demand Explanations

Users can request a detailed explanation for the removal of any submission. In order to do so, the explanation request needs to:

• be posted as a top-level comment on the deleted submission (for transparency);
• ping at least one moderator (using the @ sign);
• be specific and demonstrate a prior understanding of the rules cited as the reason of removal, requesting information beyond what the Submission Requirements already provide.

Examples for specificity on a submission removed per rule 1:

• "Why has this been removed?" ✘
• "This is related to Pizzagate, why has this been removed?" ✘
• "@wecanhelp, I think my post complies with rule 1 as it is about the Clinton family, and I'm clearly stating that. What am I missing?" ✔

Moderators, regardless of these rules, are still encouraged to be supportive, and make helpful comments on removals where it makes sense and there is a realistic chance of improving a submission that is otherwise investigative in its nature.